Tag: writing

The Artist’s Way: Week Eleven Reflections

Recovering a Sense of Autonomy

Happy November!

It’s currently very late on Saturday night (really- very early on Sunday morning) and I just witnessed the first World Series loss I’ve ever cared about. I started following baseball for the first time this year, and my home team (the Toronto Blue Jays) performed exceptionally well over the course of the season. Although I’m a little bitter about the Dodgers’ win, I’m happy to have followed something so monumental in Toronto’s sports history. The energy in the city has been electric over the past week- we were all united by the Blue Jays. 

Onward to the topic of this blog post, my reflections on week eleven of The Artist’s Way. This week focused on recovering a sense of autonomy. The text started with a long passage (almost a manifesto?) about accepting oneself as an artist. It felt like a summation of a lot of different concepts and ideas that have been explored throughout the program.

The text went on to discuss achieving success as an artist, and how to choose creative projects for pay. If you work as an artist for a living, you may be hired for projects that pay the bills, but that aren’t creatively fulfilling. Cameron talks about considering the hidden costs of accepting such projects- time and creative energy- and suggests balancing such projects with personal artistic endeavours that do fill your cup. 

There was also a long section in the text called “The Zen of Sports” which talked about the importance of physical activity to artists. This conversation resonated with me, and also brought to mind Haruki Murakami’s memoir, “What I Talk About When I Talk About Running” (which I love, and have read twice). Artists can benefit from physical activity in a variety of different ways. A lot of artists find that their minds wander freely when they exercise, bringing them inspiration. Others (including a friend I spoke to this week) find that exercising is a great time to puzzle through issues that come up in their projects. Personally, as a long-distance runner and walker, I find that walking frees up my mind for thinking things over, and running gives me perspective. Both activities have been extremely beneficial to my art.

Finally, the text invited readers to build an artist’s altar: a place to keep little things that make them happy. A so-called “altar” can be as big as an entire room or as small as a window ledge. As it turns out, I already sort of have one- it’s my bookshelf. My bookshelf houses my book collection, yes, but also little treasures I’ve collected throughout my life that bring me joy, including origami stars, cute blind box figurines, a set of glass fruits gifted to me by my grandmother, a jar of seaglass and ceramic seal statues that my mom gave me. My bookshelf is, without a doubt, my favourite part of my apartment. 

Morning Pages

I did poorly with the morning pages this week. There were two days I made late entries and two days I skipped the pages altogether. There has been so much resistance with these pages over the last few weeks. Honestly, I just don’t think they’re for me. To get back on track, I had to remind myself that I made a commitment to finishing The Artist’s Way program; and that the morning pages are an integral part of it. I also tried to give myself some perspective: at this point in the program, I only have one more week of pages left to go, and then I never have to write them again.

Tasks

Fitting as The Artist’s Way is coming to a close, a lot of the tasks for this week asked participants to consider their plans, goals and dreams for the future. Personally, I’m worried about not being able to keep the magic of The Artist’s Way alive once I get back to my everyday life. Concrete goals tend to work better for me than abstract ones, so I’ll need to find a way to set a practical goal for myself in relation to creating.1

Artist Date and Other Artistic Endeavours

This week was filled with a lot of late nights watching the World Series. This said, I did manage to get some writing done. I started drafting a new short story (no title yet, but it’s about a man found guilty of a crime who is awaiting his sentencing) and kept working on the short story I drafted in Week 7 (which has the working title “Thanksgiving”). I also made banana chocolate chip muffins again.

My artist date this week was a bit of a bust. It started with the best of intentions- I drove up to Newmarket with plans to walk through Fairy Lake Park and then go to a café and work a bit on “Thanksgiving”. Unfortunately, it was so cold outside I could barely enjoy the walk, and when I got to the café to write, let’s just say my laptop had other plans. If there was any positive takeaway from this week’s artist date, I’d say that at least I had a pretty good iced coffee and bagel with cream cheese at the café. If you’re ever in Newmarket, I highly recommend Metropolis Mercantile + Café. 

In any event- bad artist date aside- all I can do is move forward. Wish me luck for week twelve!

With love, 

Laura Kate

  1. I’m thinking about a goal of creating and sharing one work per week- whether that be a blog post, photoset, watercolour painting or something else. ↩︎

The Artist’s Way: Week Ten Reflections

Recovering a Sense of Self-Protection

Happy Monday!

Because of the half-marathon monopolizing all of my time and mental energy last week, I decided to stretch “Week Ten” of The Artist’s Way into two weeks. 

Week Ten focused on recovering a sense of self-protection. It involved identifying potentially toxic patterns of thought. In the Artist’s Way text, Julia Cameron discussed how we each have our own vices (for example, substance use, workaholism, or obsessions with “painful love” or complicated relationships) which block our creative flow. One of the tasks for the week involved reflecting on our vices and how they impact us creatively.  I found the exercise useful- I identified a few things I routinely find myself preoccupied with (dynamic, difficult relationships; food, exercise and body image) which tend to sap the resources (time, mental and creative energies) I could otherwise be channelling into my art. 

The text also had sections dedicated to unpacking the perils of worrying about fame and being hyper-competitive towards other artists. In the case of the former, when we turn our focus from the creative process to achieving and maintaining fame, we invite “a continual feeling of lack”, because fame is a drug one can never get enough of. In the case of the latter, being hyper-competitive and focusing on the achievements of others shifts our focus away from ourselves and our own unique talents. We may stop creating original work if we start worrying that our art should more closely resemble others’. Cameron advises staying true to who we are and creating what we are drawn to create. As she says, “each of us is our own country, an interesting place to visit.” Personally, while I don’t think I’ve ever been particularly focused on becoming famous, I am quite susceptible to getting into a competitive mindset. A competitive attitude is helpful in the courtroom when I’m wearing my lawyer hat, but not so helpful in my creative life. I guess it just goes to show that competitiveness, like many traits, can be helpful or harmful, depending on the context.

Finally, Cameron acknowledged creative drought: the painful, inevitable fact that, “in any creative life, there [will be] dry seasons.” Her solution is to “stumble on”- to keep creating, to keep writing morning pages, because we must. Like all things, with time, creative droughts end. 

Artist Date

Surprise, surprise- my artist date this week was another walk through a forest. I wasn’t originally planning for the walk to be my artist date, but once I was on it, I turned it into one. Generally when I go for walks, I tune out the world around me with my inner dialogue or by listening to audiobooks, podcasts or music. This time, I treated the walk as a sensory experience; making an effort to take in the sights, sounds and smells. I was overcome by the beauty of my surroundings, and the experience honestly made me feel like a child again. I waded through red and orange leaves scattered on the forest floor, felt the sun’s rays streaming through the trees and onto my face, smelled the earth. The experience was nothing short of magical. 

Other Artistic Endeavours 

Over the past two weeks, I painted another watercolour picture and baked carrot muffins. I am starting to develop instincts about ingredients and spices that I definitely didn’t have before. I think it’s safe to say that I’ve gotten the hang of baking muffins at this point- over the course of The Artist’s Way, I think I’ve made at least 4 different kinds. Moving forward, I’d like to challenge myself to try out more difficult recipes. My partner has been suggesting pies…

I also started a new class at the University of Toronto School of Continuing Studies: Writing Short Fiction. As you might recall, in Week Two of The Artist’s Way, I reflected on the fact that I struggle with writing longform fiction, and always get more satisfaction out of writing short stories and nonfiction pieces. Since then, I’ve been producing nonfiction content pretty regularly through these weekly blog posts. I’m hopeful that the class I’m taking at the SCS will allow me to learn more about short story writing as a genre, and give me an excuse to write more short stories. I’m excited to see where the class takes me.

Winter Anxiety

In completely unrelated news, something that’s been on my mind is how I’m going to cope with the coming winter season. I feel the weather already starting to shift- night falls early and the temperature is dropping… there was frost in the grass this morning. With these observations comes a sense of acute dread. I come by my apprehension of winter honestly- my mother would live in 30°C weather all year if she could. This said, I’m determined to avoid seasonal depression this year. I’ve been doing a lot of research online for anecdotal accounts from creators about how not to hate the winter season. 

One of the perspectives I fell upon suggested treating winter as a call for rest: a time to give yourself permission to slow down, prioritize recovery and indulge in little luxuries you otherwise wouldn’t. As a productivity addict who struggles with having any downtime on her schedule, the idea of having a designated time of year for rest sounds both impractical and daunting- but also interesting. I’ve found this autumn season to be unusually busy and difficult to keep up with (between work, social obligations, The Artist’s Way, half-marathon training, and now a creative writing class). Perhaps prioritizing rest for the next few months wouldn’t be so bad.

With love- and until next week, 

Laura Kate

The Artist’s Way: Week Seven Reflections

Recovering a Sense of Connection

Happy Sunday, and happy first weekend of autumn!

I’ve had yet another busy week1, but feel like I did okay with my progress through The Artist’s Way. The theme of the program this week was recovering a sense of connection, which I understood to mean connection with our inner children, the universe, God, or whatever else we consider to be the sources of our creativity. 

In the text, Julia Cameron began by discussing creating as a form of listening. She explained that creatives often feel as though in order to create, they need to “think up” great ideas. On the contrary, however, if they are connected with their creative sources, creating can become as easy as “getting down” ideas that come naturally. She mentioned Michelangelo remarking that sculpting David was merely a matter of “releasing” him from the marble block he found him in.

The idea that creating is a matter of listening is something that I’ve been engaging with since Week One. In Week One of The Artist’s Way, Cameron invited readers to experiment with using creative affirmations. The affirmation I chose at the time (and have stuck with ever since) was, “as I create and listen, I will be led.” I frequently write and re-write the affirmation in my morning pages. To me, it has been a promise that if I put less pressure on myself to make great things, and instead, just focus on putting pen to paper, creating will come more easily. 

Cameron also talked about perfectionism and learning to take creative risks. Perfectionism is something I struggle with. It regularly impedes my writing process, and makes me avoid drawing certain subjects. This said, it’s important for creatives to keep in mind that, “anything worth doing might even be worth doing badly”. Throughout The Artist’s Way, I have been finding that I’m getting better at combating my perfectionism already. I’m regularly trying out new artistic media and I’m learning to be okay with being a beginner. 

One idea that I found interesting in the text is the idea that no piece of art is ever truly “perfect” or even “finished”. There can always be improvements to be made- but, at some point, an artist needs to put down one project so they can move on to another. A writer can be tempted to edit a manuscript forever, but, sooner or later, they need to stop writing and try to have their piece published. Cameron quotes Paul Gardner: “a painting is never finished. It simply stops in interesting places”.

Finally, Cameron talked about jealousy, and how it can be used as a “map” to locate areas in our lives we are unhappy with and need to work on. She provided a personal example of jealousy in her creative life: she was jealous of female playwrights until she wrote her first play. The jealousy signalled an unrealized aspiration. Cameron challenged readers to think about the people in their own lives that they are jealous of, why they are jealous, and what changes they can make to quell the jealousy.  

Tasks

I didn’t do very well with the tasks this week. Some of the tasks (collaging, for example, or writing out an inspirational phrase in calligraphy) didn’t resonate with me. Others I didn’t find time for. As I said, it was another busy week. 

One of the suggested tasks invited participants to “listen to one side of an album, just for joy”. While I didn’t do exactly this, I did go to a concert- The B-52’s and Devo. I was mostly unfamiliar with the two groups performing: both seemed to hail from the new wave genre of the 1970s and 80s. I went to the concert with an open mind and ended up having a lot of fun, much to my surprise. Every song made me want to dance. I left with some new songs to add to my Spotify playlists and a desire to explore the wider discography of both groups.

Cameron also invited readers to “create one wonderful smell in [their houses]” and “buy [themselves]… one comforting, self-loving something”. I interpreted these tasks in a very consumerist way. I used the scent exercise as an excuse to go to Bath and Body Works, smell all of the fall-scented candles, and buy myself the one I liked best (Pumpkin Bonfire: “white pumpkin, a bundle of clove buds, glowing embers”). I then went to Uniqlo and purchased a wine-coloured cashmere Heattek long-sleeved shirt- a very comforting, self-soothing article of clothing.2

Artist Date

For my artist date, I went to a café, ordered a sandwich and a drink, pulled out my laptop, and drafted a short story. When I say short, I mean short- just under 1200 words. I’d had the idea for the story in my head for a while; it was just a matter of “getting it down”. It’s been months since I’ve tried my hand at fiction-writing, so this was a nice change.

Other Artistic Endeavours

This week, I painted 2 pictures using my new, better quality watercolour paints, and tried out a new recipe for pumpkin chocolate chip muffins. With respect to the watercolour paints, I noticed a quality difference right away between the new ones (Winsor & Newton Cotman paints- which are still not professional quality) and the ones I’d been using previously. The new paints are much easier to use. 

I also re-activated my Instagram and created a public account for my art (@LauraaKatherinee). As you might remember, when I began The Artist’s Way, I started a blog because I had deleted most of my traditional social media. I have now been (mostly) off of traditional social media for almost 2 months. While the break has been great, I feel disconnected from the online art community. By starting a public Instagram account, I’m hoping to connect with other creatives on that platform. My plan is to deactivate my “personal” account again, but keep the public Instagram active and limit myself to a certain amount of time on the app per day. If I find myself falling into the same borderline addictive Instagram use as before, I will reassess whether I should stay on the platform.

I’ll talk to you next week!

Laura Kate

  1. I ran my first half-marathon distance, which I’m sure I’ll be talking about at length in a future blog post ↩︎
  2. In the Winter, I wear at least 1 Heattek article of clothing every day ↩︎